Endoscopes and endoscopic systems include cameras and other imaging modules that provide images on a medical display. These images can be viewed by surgeons and nurses during a surgical procedure. Typically, endoscopes and endoscopic systems do not allow surgeons to have a direct view of the surgical area during a surgical procedure and rely on cameras and imagers to transmit an image of the surgical area to a medical display.
Endoscopes in the art may be rigid or flexible. For rigid endoscopes coupled to proximal camera systems, the endoscopic image size (size of the endoscope mask) relative to the medical display size is typically determined by the diameter of the rod lens system in the endoscope and the magnification of the optics.
To facilitate coupling endoscopes having various diameters with medical displays having different dimensions, camera systems and imagers are provided with either optical or digital zoom, so that the medical image provided by the endoscope imagers can be adjusted to fit a medical display.
Users, such as surgeons or nurses, can manually optimize the image size transmitted from the endoscope on the surgical display, so that the endoscopic image is optimized for the medical display. However, optimization using both optical and digital zoom is a user intervention limitation that is performed manually. This means that a person, such as surgeon or nurse, has to manually adjust the optical or digital zoom of the endoscope so that the medical image appears properly and is optimized on the display. Being optimized means that the image is properly framed (sized) for the endoscopic display.
This manual intervention is disadvantageous as the user has to turn a knob, press a button or possibly adjust a camera imager, so as to manually adjust the optical and/or digital zoom so that the medical image appears properly sized for the display.
Known prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,039 Sato et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,912 Nagasaki et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,570,185 Arai et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,582,576 Hori et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,448 Chatenever et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,662,584 Hori et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,891,697 Saito et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,910,801 Rosenburg et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,144,492 Iijima et al. These references all involve manual intervention for optimizing images.
None of these references discloses automatically adjusting the optical and/or digital zoom so as to optimize the medical image, so the medical image appears properly on the display.
None of these references disclose using gesture detection or voice control to adjust the optical and/or digital zoom so as to optimize the medical image, so the medical image appears properly on the display.
Thus, it is desirable to provide an endoscope, endoscopic surgical system and method that automatically adjusts the optical and/or digital zoom so as to optimize the medical image, so that the medical image appears properly on the display.
It is also desirable to provide an endoscope, endoscopic surgical system and method using gesture detection or voice control to adjust the optical or digital zoom so as to optimize the medical image, so that the medical image appears properly on the display.
The endoscope, endoscopic surgical system and method provide the ability for surgeons, nurses, and/or other people in an operating room to optimize the medical image, so that the medical image appears properly on the display, which leads to optimized viewing of the medical images during a surgical procedure.